The Tale of 10 Rings
by mangamaniac02
Summary: Mandarin, a long time and quite well known villain, has died, and finally happy with his life he does not want to reanimate himself again. So in his final breaths, he scattered the rings all over the world for whomever is worthy of bearing the power to find. Now, follow the journey of Joseph Barker and friends as they try to find all 10 of the rings before people, bad people, do.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters in this story, except the OC, and the same goes for some other material in this story. That honor belongs to Stan Lee/the Marvel Franchise. Also, some of this content is fictitious, such as the temples. (I attempted to research these things, although I could not find anything.)

Long ago, in a not so distant past, there was a villain named Mandarin, who owned ten rings of unimaginable power of which he found in an alien spaceship. Each of these rings each possessed a special ability, such as generating lightning, or even controlling the minds of others. Although, when Mandarin died, finally happy with his life and not willing to reanimate himself once again, Mandarin did something unbelievable. In his short hours before death, Mandarin used the power of the rings to scatter themselves all over the world, using one of the rings to create a map before doing so to map where these rings would end up being. Then he hid the map, until someone worthy of the power of the rings, whether their intentions be good or evil, would find this map and find the rings. However, some of Mandarin's allies did not like this idea, and now sit in wait, waiting to steal the rings from the one who is supposedly "worthy" of these rings, or to find the rings before the worthy one and use them for world domination…

Joseph Barker looked out the car window, bouncing up and down in his seat. His head out of the window, holding on to his glasses and brushing his hand through his short, brown hair with his other hand. Today would be a very exciting day! Here in Oklahoma, not much is exciting except for the occasional tornado every now and then, well, what else did you expect from a state in the middle of Tornado Valley. Yet today, today would be different. You see, Joseph was perhaps one of the smartest kids in his part of town, little ol' Oklahoma City, alright, so not so little. But you get the picture, Joseph had a real passion for learning, and today his mom was taking him to a real Chinese temple from ages ago!

So, naturally, Joseph was more than an excited to go see it. Yet Joseph calmed himself, after all he was 14, he should be acting a bit more mature, but he just couldn't help himself! Finally, after what seemed like ages, the car pulling into the parking lot of the tourist area and his mom parked the car.

"All right Joseph, I realize that you are older now, so you may roam the temple if you wish, but please keep your phone handy alright? And please tell me where you'll be going before you head off someplace, alright?" Joseph's mom said, turning in her seat to face him.

Joseph had complete respect for his mom, and replied,"Yes mom, and thanks again for this trip."

"No problem, kiddo. So you got your map?"

"Check."

"Your phone? Your binoculars? What about your water bottle?"

"Check, check, and… Check."

"What about your flashlight? Some of the exhibits ar-"

"Mom!" Joseph interrupted. "I'll be fine, just trust me. I studied the map yesterday and this morning, and before we left you made me check my stuff, like, five times! I think that I'm good." he said calmly and soothingly, yet with a hint of frustration as well.

Joseph's mom shook her head, "All right, I'm just worried about my only child getting lost." she said, embracing him while she said it. "Especially with school starting tomorrow, and you wouldn't want to miss that, would yah!"

That's right, Joseph was an only child, which would explain why his mother was so protective of him, and it was even harder with a father who died three years ago. Besides, being one of the smartest kids in Oklahoma wouldn't you expect he liked school? Anyways, his mother finally released him from the grips of her embrace, handed him his ticket along with some money, and off Joseph went…

So, after entering the park, Joseph decided to go straight to the temple of the air god, Yuqiang. This may not have been a big highlight of the site, however Joseph couldn't help but be interested in every single bit of Chinese mythology and religion. Besides, he had seen pictures of this temple and they were all so magnificent. Though these temples may be old they still possessed something about them, a certain air that just caught Joseph's attention. So, as Joseph went to the temple he signed up for a tour not that far from the entrance. A few minutes later, a young woman, probably not a day older than 24, appeared before the small group that had gathered at the entrance of the temple. She had shoulder-length blonde hair and no makeup whatsoever, one of those shirts with the words "Staff" on the back, and stood over all of the tourists in her high heels.

"Attention everyone, the tour for the temple of Yuqiang shall now begin. If you could all come this way then the tour will begin." she said, in a voice that wasn't shouting but could be heard over all the noise.

As everyone gathered, murmuring and whispering, Joseph soon found himself stuck in the middle of the crowd, and it didn't help that these people were almost all adults. The tour guide lady was speaking, but with one ear smushed against someone's arm and surrounded by tall people blocking the noise Jospeh hardly heard a whisper. Slowly, yet gradually, Joseph made his way to the front of the crowd, squeezing this way and that.

"-ll right. So please be careful around the fragile architecture of this old structure, and if you follow me then this tour will begin." the guide said, or, that's what Joseph heard.

As the group headed in, Joseph got a better look at the temple than the pictures. The entrance was extravagant, a high wooden entrance painted the colors of the sky and the sea, for Yuqiang was also the god of the northern sea, complemented by some hanging chinese paper lanterns, all alight and painted a nice shade of blue. Joseph stood there in awe, but that was just the entrance. As Joseph looked ahead, which was harder than it seemed when being shoved around by adults keeping up with the tour guide, Joseph saw an amazing wooden structure painted shades of blue, splashes of white for clouds, and to complement it all there was an old stone sculpture of Yuqiang out front, with the bird body and human face as depicted in Chinese mythology.

Joseph's attention snapped back to the guide and his group, for they were awfully far ahead, it was as if the temple's beauty had put him in a trance. Anyways, Joseph rushed up to the group and heard some facts as they walked through the inside, which was awfully hard seeing how Joseph was in the back and could hardly hear a thing, and he was continuously distracted by the artwork, the various old sacrifices and offerings, and much more in the temple. However, some few facts that could reach his ears caught his attention.

Yet as the tour continued, nothing caught his attention more than one of the exhibits near the end, it was a beautiful type of bird, made of fine, polished quartz and was studded with some aquamarine jewels with two snakes under each clawed foot made of emerald sitting on top of a pedestal, the statuette, not the bird. Also, it had intricate carvings of what seemed to be wind on the bird, and what appeared to be scales on the snakes, and on the top of the head of this amazing bird statuette was a Chinese symbol that looked like this: 空气.

"This feature is the main feature of the temple of Yuqiang, this exhibit features what Chinese mythology depicts Yuqiang as, a bird with snakes mounted under each foot. This magnificent piece, made from various jewels, has been around for ages, and with our technology here in Oklahoma, our scientists have been able to preserve this exhibit without tarnishing it. Any questions?"

It was at this point that Joseph raised his hand. "Yes, you, young man in the back?"

"What is the symbol, the one on top of the bird's, I mean, Yuqiang's head?"

The tour guide looked at the symbol he was talking about and turned to face Joseph. "Why that symbol means air or breath, Chinese writing can be translated in many ways you see. Now any other questions?" She pauses for a moment, "No. Well then, there are a few more exhibits left, so let's get a move on." the guide said, waving over her shoulder as she started turning the corner.

Joseph hung back though, pacing about and taking time to really notice what the place looked like, without the distraction of the exhibits. The walls were a pale yellow decorated with splashes of blue and white, with trims on the bottom and top of the walls inlaid with many curvy lines with variations in color between white and blue. Joseph nodded as he took all of this in and went back to observe the statuette again. It truly was amazing, shining bright and sitting there in all of its glory. Yet as he was observing this statuette, he noticed that there was some dust on the neck of the crane.

"Well, looks like the scientists and their technology missed something." Joseph said as he loomed over the crane's neck. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind, if… I just," Joseph said getting closer to the statuette with each word.

Then he blew on the dust, getting spittle everywhere, and whispered sharply, "Dangit, I should have just left it alone."

Then, he looked around to make sure no one was coming, then took his shirt and started rubbing all the spittle off.

"There, all done." Joseph said to himself, carefully inspecting his handiwork, when he noticed some spittle trapped inside the little Chinese characters. "Shoot, missed a spot." he said, trying to get his shirt in between the tiny crevices containing the spittle, and after some squeezing, the job was done. "There, all done." Joseph said to himself, and as a little finishing touch, Joseph blew on the symbols, and rubbed them to give them a little shine.

Suddenly, Joseph felt something while rubbing the statue with his shirt, was it just him or was the statue getting, cooler? All of a sudden the pedestal, of which the statuette lied above, slid to the side, and out erupted a tornado, engulfing Joseph in it. Then, the tornado seemed to carry Joseph down the shaft underneath the supposed, "pedestal," and the pedestal lid closed shut, leaving nothing behind. Joseph, of course, was freaking out, when he saw the tornado, he immediately backed away, but tripped on a lip in the carpet on the floor, and now that all was lost he started crying out for help. Freakier yet though was when the tornado engulfed Joseph, Joseph started freaking out, for inside a tornado all oxygen is sucked out, yet strangely he was breathing perfectly fine.

So as Joseph was being sucked to who knows where, he started trying to calm down. He tried to stand up and found that he could move freely around within the tornado barrier, thing, it was just there to make sure he didn't fall, or escape either. So Joseph sat and waited, and after a little bit Joseph found himself lowered into a dark place, a cave maybe, suddenly, Joseph remembered his flashlight that his mom gave him and took that out. Joseph gasped at what he saw, it was a cave, medium sized it seemed, and wasn't filled with holes to other caves or anything, it seemed more roomy than a cave actually, and there was no apparent exit, however there was something on the opposite side of the room, a pedestal it seemed, with something behind it too. Then the tornado slowly disappeared, and strangely was led back to the pedestal. Filled with curiosity, Joseph walked over to the pedestal, careful of booby traps or any other sorts of dangers, flashing his flashlight everywhere, I mean who knows what can be found in deep dark caves way underground with a mysterious thing in the corner.

So as Joseph slowly approached the other wall, he started to take in what he was seeing. There was a pedestal, a real nice one too, looked untouched, like it was made yesterday, and atop it was a velvet satin pillow, like one a young ring bearer would carry at a wedding, and on top of that an old looking chest with a lock on it lied, right next to a shining blue key. Behind it, there were dragon heads, ten of them, all of which were connected in the middle of the circle, which the heads formed, by thick looking necks. Each one was real unique, one head had what could be engraved with marks like wind, or the sea possibly, and one looked like it had lightning all over its head, with some dark looking clouds as well. However there were much more, so Joseph instead focused on the real wonder, the chest. He simply had to know what was inside.

This chest was way down in a secret cave beneath a Chinese temple, surely no one could own this chest. So Joseph picked up the key and before he tried to see if it would fit in the lock he noticed a little note, attached to the key by a little string, or fishing line, anyways the note read, _The key only works for whomever is worthy of the powers of what lays inside the box._ Strange, Joseph thought. So Joseph took the key and put it in the lock, perfect fit, then he turned the key and with an audible click, the lock was, well, unlocked. So Joseph removed the lock, and opened the chest, and Joseph was astonished. Inside the chest lying on top of a velvet pillow, laid a ring, it was a nothing special, with steel for the circle and the gem was shaped like a simple blue circle, however Joseph was pretty sure he knew what he was looking at, he believed that he was looking at one of Mandarin's rings of power. It would make sense, Mandarin is Chinese and he was rumored to have died recently, so maybe the rings were scattered or something upon his death? Who knows, but Joseph definitely knew that he had to be careful. If it was one of Mandarin's power rings, he had to be careful, for Mandarin nearly conquered the world, which is why Joseph recognized this ring, and even if it wasn't a ring of power, Joseph had to be careful, because who would go through such measure just to hide a normal ring?

However Joseph knew right away that this was no ordinary ring, he could feel the power radiating from it, that weird, alien power. Yet, however deadly it may be, the ring seemed to be calling him. So, Joseph picked up the ring, and the pillow lifted up as well, for apparently the ring must've been stuck to it. It was a good thing too, for underneath the pillow was what at first glance appeared to be a map. Joseph picked that up as well and inspected it, it was a map of the world, and across it were little dots of different color, and right where Oklahoma would be, was a little blue dot shaped like a simple circle. Joseph couldn't believe his eyes, was this a map of all ten rings? Was he the one worthy enough to wield the powers of the rings?


End file.
